Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 04 Read Free

is best for the people. One day you will be a chief, and these are things that you must think about for their sake.”
    He’d laughed, almost bitterly. “I wish you were right, but … “
    And that had been it. He’d never mentioned his doubts again, and she’d never raised them on her own. What was would have to be enough. But every time he prepared for war, or got himself ready for a raid far to the south or west, she thought about that night, heard his words as plainly as if he had spoken them again. And she worried. She worried because she knew that uncertainty was as deadly an enemy as any Apache or Mexican, could snuff out Nocona’s life in a twinkling. He had to believe in what he was doing, do it with all his heart in order to do it well. If he were unsure, he wouldhesitate, and one day that hesitation would get him killed.
    Now, hearing the whisper of the arrrows as they slid into the soft deerskin quiver, she heard the words again. And this time, like every other time since that night, she chewed on her lip rather than mention that conversation, hoping that it had slipped his mind. She would not risk reminding him and perhaps giving him reason to question what he was about to do.
    “Will you be gone long?” she asked. It was what she always asked, always quietly as if she hoped he didn’t hear her. But he always did. This time was no exception.
    He shook his head. “Not long. I’ll be back just as soon as I can.”
    “You go to Mexico?”
    “Of course. Mexico. That is where the horses are. You know that.”
    “Don’t we have enough horses?”
    “You can never have enough horses, you know that, too. We can trade most of them to the Kiowa and the Shoshone, anyway. It is much easier for us to get them from Mexico than it is for them.”
    “What do the Kiowa have that we don’t have already? Why do we need anything to trade with them? Is their buffalo meat better than ours? Do their children have moccasins while ours do not?”
    “You know that’s not it …”
    “What, then? I want to understand … I knowyou have told me before, but I still don’t think I understand.”
    “They have guns, white man weapons they get from the north and the east.”
    “Your arrows are deadly enough, are they not?”
    He laughed. “Yes, they are. But I can’t shoot an arrow as far as a gun can shoot a bullet. And there will soon come a time when our enemies have enough guns that they will not be afraid to attack us. And when that day comes, we had better have guns of our own.”
    White Heron took a deep breath. She didn’t want to argue with him. Not now, not when he would be leaving so soon, and maybe not coming back. That was no way to send him off to Mexico. So she turned back to the unfinished moccasin, her practiced fingers working the rawhide lacing through another hole and another and a third. She became aware of the silence then, stopped once more, and looked up at Nocona. He was watching her intently, his eyes wide.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “Nothing.” He continued to look at her, and his expression seemed to be changing from one dark mood to another.
    “Tell me …”
    “I like watching you do that. There is something comforting in it. It is nice to have such control over something that you can start and know just what it will be like when it is finished.”
    “Don’t make too much of it.”
    “Or what?”
    “Or I might put sleeves on your next moccasins.”
    He laughed then, lightheartedly this time, and dropped to one knee beside her. “You would, too, wouldn’t you?”
    “If you don’t go soon, yes. The warriors are waiting for you. You can’t disappoint them, or when it comes time they will look to someone else to be chief.”
    He sighed. “There are times when I wish they would do that.”
    “Don’t talk like that. You know you don’t mean it. You would not hate being chief.”
    “Probably not. But I wonder if I would not hate it as much as I would not